Category: Rock

The Collection: Episode 7 – March 2024 Wrap-Up

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We are doing something different with the monthly wrap-ups as they are now going to be done in video form. Since each month I am adding to ‘The Collection’, why not show the new stuff on our show ‘The Collection’. So, if you want to see everything and hear a little more discussion on the items, go check out the video. It is live right now on Youtube, April 1st at 8pm.

You’ll get some of the usual suspects as I always seem to have a new Kiss CD and a Rock Candy CD, but there will so much more like the new Judas Priest, new Scott Stapp, some cool Psych Rock and a whole lot of CDs I picked at one store for only $2.50 each. We have vinyl, CDs and cassettes, but no 8-Tracks this time around…sorry Tim!! And you might even see some something you’d never expect me to buy. Come check it out.

If you do check it out, please hit Subscribe, hit Like and leave a message so I know you were there. Thanks for stopping by and I hope you have a wonderful rest of your day.

Bon Jovi – ‘100,000,000 Bon Jovi Fans Can’t Be Wrong’ (2004) – (Disc 3 – Part 4 of 6) – Box Set Review (The Bon Jovi Collection Series)

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We are in the year 2004 and Bon Jovi has now been around for 20 Years at this point. To celebrate their 20th Anniversary, they released a really cool box set of mostly unreleased tunes and a lot of little extras titled ‘100,000,000 Bon Jovi Fans Can’t Be Wrong’. The Box Set is a collection of 50 songs spread over 4 CDs, 38 of which had never been released. The others were songs from soundtracks, remixes and/or B-Sides. This was a band dumping everything sitting by the wayside in to one set and I applaud them for that. Us diehard fans love this kind of stuff. And if that wasn’t enough, if you have the Japanese Edition, which i do, you get another CD of B-Sides and Japanese Bonus Tracks. That is another 10 songs. 

This is a lot of music to absorb and we won’t be absorbing it all here. Nope. I’m going to go through each and every CD, track by track over 6 posts. We are now on the third disc which had a total of 13 tracks, 9 of which were previously unreleased. So let’s get started and dive into the music as that is why we are really here any way.

The third disc opens with one of the greatest Bon Jovi songs never to be released on an album. That song is “Edge of A Broken Heart” which was used for the soundtrack of the great comedy movie starring The Fat Boys called ‘Disorderlies’. The movie was from 1987 and was just terrible. However, the song is amazing. The song was written by Jon Bon Jovi, Richie Sambora and Desmond Child. It ended up as an outtake to the ‘Slippery When Wet’ then resurrected for the soundtrack. A fan favorite that the band knew needed to be on this box set. The song was too much like the big hits on the album so they pulled it and what a shame.

Next up is “Sympathy” which Jon and Richie during the ‘Keep the Faith’ sessions. According to the book in the box set, the recording studio where they were recording the album in Vancouver had a projector that was playing a Rolling Stones concert and it was plastered on the wall about 8 to 10 feet wide. They song became a homage to the band. At the end of the song is a little bit where Jon pokes fun at Tico Torres singing in a weird old school trying to rhyme anything with Tico. It is pretty funny. Richie helps out and it is quite funny.

Continue reading “Bon Jovi – ‘100,000,000 Bon Jovi Fans Can’t Be Wrong’ (2004) – (Disc 3 – Part 4 of 6) – Box Set Review (The Bon Jovi Collection Series)” →

My Sunday Song – “Dance Along The Edge” By Concrete Blonde

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For My Sunday Song #406, we tackled Concrete Blonde’s “Dance Along the Edge”. Harrison’s pick takes us back to 1986 and the band’s debut album called ‘Concrete Blonde’. The song was the third single from the album and released in 1987. It was written by singer and bassist Johnette Napolitano. The album went to #96 on the Billboard Charts and brought the band in to the spotlight. I remember when they came out, but honestly, there were not what I was in to back in 1986 as I was in to much harder and heavier bands and not the alternative stuff of the time.

The song is a pretty powerful statement about relationships how we dance along the edge of issues within the relationship and never communicating with each about them in fear of hurting the other person or the relationship crumbling. The fear builds up and makes it all that much worse. You’ve seen relationships fall apart before and don’t want it to happen to you. You are happy and in love with the person, but the lack of communicating is ruining everything.

Johnette has crafted a really cool track. She lays down a great bass line that is the driving force for the song. There is a darkness and moodiness to the song as the bass drips with sadness. The guitar work is minimal from James Mankey, but the riff is really cool and accentuates the song perfectly. The drum beat from Harry Rushakoff adds more texture and flavor to the song. But the shining point is Johnette’s vocals. They are sensual yet a tinge of grit that blends so well together. She sings with so much feeling and so little effort that she makes it sound easy. She puts the right amount of sadness in to the words you feel the couples emotions and understand what they are going through. A really nice track.

Visit my website https://vinyl-records.nl for complete album information and thousands of album cover photos
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Friday New Releases – March 29, 2024

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We are to the end of another month and it was a great month of new music for me. I’m glad though it is ending in a whimper as I need a break for the wallet and time to catch up on what I already picked up this month. So, nothing for me this week. What are you wanting to hear. Let us know and what we may have missed. Thanks for stopping by and I hope you all have a wonderful weekend.

  •  Sum 41 – Heaven :x: Hell – (Rise Records)
  •  Aaron Lewis – The Hill – (Big Machine Label Group)
  •  Michael Schenker Group – Is It Loud Enough? Michael Schenker 1980-1983 – (Chrysalis)
Continue reading “Friday New Releases – March 29, 2024” →

Def Leppard – “Have You Ever Needed Someone So Bad” (1992) – Cassette Single (The Def Leppard Collection Series)

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“Have You Ever Needed Someone So Bad” is yet another ballad from ‘Adrenalize’ and there were a bunch. It was the third single off the album and the highest charting as well going all the way to #12 on the Hot 100 and even #7 on the Mainstream Rock Chart. The song was written by Phil Collen, Joe Elliott and Robert John “Mutt” Lange who might not have produced the album but he was involved thus the “Executive Producer” title. 

The song is a tale of unrequited love, I mean, the title sums it up nicely. The person on the song longs for this woman so much that he aches for her. She seems to be there, ready for the night, but by morning she is gone. She doesn’t want to commit and he is ready to go all in. Almost to the point of stalkerish, but not sure he has crossed that line yet.

SIDE 1:

‘Adrenalize’ was an album filled with so many ballads and you’d think they all can’t be good, but you’d be wrong. This is yet another masterpiece. The ballads Def Leppard were doing all sounds so sophisticated, so pure. They seem to spend a lot of time making them perfect. ”Have You Ever Needed Someone So Bad” had that flair of “Love Bites”, that emotive quality, it felt meaningful and honest. I love how the guitar solo mirrors the emotions and you can feel the sadness he is feeling not having his love returned. The band really seems to connect with this song on all fronts. Brilliant…just brilliant.

Continue reading “Def Leppard – “Have You Ever Needed Someone So Bad” (1992) – Cassette Single (The Def Leppard Collection Series)” →

Queensryche – “Silent Lucidity” (1991) – CD Singles

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“Silent Lucidity” by the progressive metal band Queensrÿche will be the point of discussion today.  The song was released on Valentine’s Day in 1991 and was on their triple platinum selling album ‘Empire’.  “Silent Lucidity” was the band’s top selling single ever in the U.S. where it reached #1 on the Album Rock Tracks and all the way to #9 on the Billboard Top 100.  The song was even nominated for a Grammy for Best Rock Song.

The version I have is a 2 CD set out of the UK. It was released individually each a week apart, but the version I have has them both compiled in to one set. In the UK, it doesn’t look like this was released until August 1992. There is supposed to be a Free Fold-Out Banner Poster, however, my version does not have it included…darn it. In the 2 CD set, “Silent Lucidity” kicks off both discs so we will only discuss the song once. The set then has three songs from ‘Operation: Mindcrime’ all performed Live and one bonus track called “Last Time in Paris”.

“Silent Lucidity” was a ballad, which was not something the band was known for doing.  The song is absolutely beautiful with the whole lullaby feel, the wonderful orchestration added and lastly, Geoff Tates vocals perfectly fit the mood of the song.  It felt like you were in a dream state while listening to the song which was exactly the impact the band was intending.

The song was supposedly inspired by the book ‘Creative Dreaming’ by Patricia Garfield, PhD which explains how to control your dreams…which I don’t think I have ever been able to do that.  The song is about lucid dreaming which is the where you are actually aware that you are dreaming and as the book states, you can actually have control over parts of the dream.  During the song, there is actually a voice that is explaining how to do just that.  They state…”Visualize your dream. Record it in the present tense. Put it into a permanent form. If you persist in your efforts, you can achieve dream control.”

Continue reading “Queensryche – “Silent Lucidity” (1991) – CD Singles” →

The Collection: Episode 6 – Kiss on Vinyl (Part 3)

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The video is up now for Episode 6 of The Collection. When you have older siblings, their music taste can influence what you like and my brother, Gary, was a huge Kiss fan and that spawned me being one as well. From about 7-8 years old all the way til now at 55, I am still a Kiss fan.

For Part 3, we pick up with Kiss after the reunion and start with Psycho Circus and go all the way up to today and their latest Anniversary releases. We even through in a few Kiss Adjacent Vinyl. I was surprised by how many were still sealed. And I was surprised by how upset I got on some of their packaging choices. I give my honest opinion and don’t hold back.

I hope you enjoy this episode which goes “live” right now…Monday night, March 25th at 8pm. Please do leave a comment and I promise I’ll address them as soon as I can! Don’t forget to click “Like” and “Subscribe”. Thanks for watching.

Bon Jovi – ‘100,000,000 Bon Jovi Fans Can’t Be Wrong’ (2004) – (Disc 2 – Part 3 of 6) – Box Set Review (The Bon Jovi Collection Series)

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We are in the year 2004 and Bon Jovi has now been around for 20 Years at this point. To celebrate their 20th Anniversary, they released a really cool box set of mostly unreleased tunes and a lot of little extras titled ‘100,000,000 Bon Jovi Fans Can’t Be Wrong’. The Box Set is a collection of 50 songs spread over 4 CDs, 38 of which had never been released. The others were songs from soundtracks, remixes and/or B-Sides. This was a band dumping everything sitting by the wayside in to one set and I applaud them for that. Us diehard fans love this kind of stuff. And if that wasn’t enough, if you have the Japanese Edition, which i do, you get another CD of B-Sides and Japanese Bonus Tracks. That is another 10 songs. 

This is a lot of music to absorb and we won’t be absorbing it all here. Nope. I’m going to go through each and every CD, track by track over 6 posts. We are now on the second disc which had a total of 12 tracks, 10 of which were previously unreleased. So let’s get started and dive into the music as that is why we are really here any way.

The album kicks off with the song “Garageland” which was written by Richie and Jon at Jon’s new York apartment. The song was written during the Crush era and was about where the members of the band were when they were younger. Now, the individual band members might have been in garage bands, but I don’t see Bon Jovi as ever being a garage band so this doesn’t feel authentic to me. There are some cool moments in the song and it does rock out at times, but it is in rough shape and needs a lot of work to turn it in to something. Jon’s vocals are rough and the bridge/chorus is not that good. For me, not a favorite on this disc and could skip it.

Like “Taking It Back” on Disc 1, “Starting All Over Again” shows the band with attitude and a chip still on their shoulder. Jon explained that the band had their mojo back in 1992 and realized it was the band against a new machine that was rearing its head in music, Grunge and Rap. They were competing against a whole new scene. This was them saying they were going to take it all back and rise to the top again. But it doesn’t sound like anything else on “Keep the Faith” stylistically so was left off the album. I actually like this track. It has some great attitude, I like the guitar tone and it rocks out really great. A vast improvement from the opening track. This song was on a Japanese Bonus Track for ‘Keep the Faith’, but this is actually an alternate version.

Continue reading “Bon Jovi – ‘100,000,000 Bon Jovi Fans Can’t Be Wrong’ (2004) – (Disc 2 – Part 3 of 6) – Box Set Review (The Bon Jovi Collection Series)” →

My Sunday Song – “Lord of Light” by Iron Maiden

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For My Sunday Song #405, we have Harrison’s next pick of “Lord of Light” by Iron Maiden. The song is off their 2006 album, ‘A Matter of Life and Death’. The song was not a single, but after listening to it, it easily could’ve been despite it’s over 7 minutes in length. The song was written by Adrian Smith, Steve Harris and Bruce Dickinson. The album itself, went to #9 in the U.S. Billboard Chart and #4 in the UK and #1 in Germany and several other countries. 

The song has a very dark, disturbing view point…at least disturbing to me. Bruce Dickinson had this to say about it…

Just imagine there was a whole range of places between Heaven and Hell and that you got to pick, and that Lucifer is, in fact, the ‘lord of light’ downstairs, which is kind of what his name means. And all this stuff about the vengeful, eternal God wagging his finger and punishing you is all just a load of PR nonsense.” – Bruce Dickinson

It is an interesting viewpoint to take and one that would make you think really hard about it especially on a Sunday. The lyrics lead me to believe that is truly what the song is about as there is talk of Lucifer by name and hell and demons. If you could pick where you go, why would you ever pick hell, but I guess there are a lot of evil people out there.

The song itself, starts of slow with an acoustic guitar and it is all dark and a little eerie. Bruce, softly speaks the lyrics and it makes it quite haunting. Then the guitars come screaming followed by Bruce at full voice. He does have one of the best metal voices out there. Nicko McBrain’s drums are pounding with an electric intensity. It goes soft again, almost gentle as Bruce softens his tone again. It builds and then the explodes out with a guitar solo that will leave you holding on for fear life. It is a wild ride of riffs and shredding with a barrage of gun fire drumming. Then it is full on solo with fiery fingers flying over the frets. You are out of breath when it finally ends. A killer song even if it is something I don’t want to think about.

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Friday New Releases – March 22, 2024

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March keeps flying by and we have another long list of releases for you this week. The last two weeks for me have been huge with a ton of releases I was dying to hear and some I bought. This week, there is only one I want to hear and it is the new album by Gary Clark Jr. He has impressed me a lot and so I want to see what he has in store for us this go around. And who am I kidding, I’ll probably stream Alestorm because who doesn’t need a little Pirate Metal in their life. Let me know what you want to hear this week or what we may have missed. Thanks for stopping by and I hope you all have a great weekend!!

  •  Gary Clark Jr. – JPEG Raw – (Warner Records)
  •  Cruzh – The Jungle Revolution – (Frontiers Records)
  • Alestorm – Voyage of the Dead Marauder E.P. – (Napalm Records)
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